WOMEN ISSUES/ FEMINIST VOICE IN MY POETRY

There are many poems befitting the feminist
voices as analyzed by Dr. Suzana Muhammad (Universiti Sains Malaysia) in her
paper “The Development of Woman Identity: Feminist Approaches to Selected Poems
of Zurinah Hassan.” One such poem is the “Message of the Princess of Mount
Ledang to Sultan Mahmud.” The Princess of Mount Ledang was a mythical
character, unearthly, magical, mysterious, and of course described as
exceptionally beautiful. She dwelt at Mount Ledang in the southern area of
Peninsular Malaysia visible from the palace of the Malacca Sultan. As the story
goes, the sultan was looking for a queen after the demise of his consort. This
time around, the sultan was determined to marry someone or something different
from an ordinary human princess as he wanted to be different and far above anyone
else. That was how he got the idea of asking for the hand of the Princess of
Mount Ledang.

The Sultan sent his men up the mountain to
ask for her hand in marriage, causing much hardship and unnecessary death to
his subjects. It was a hazardous journey, and even Hang Tuah, the famous Malay
warrior, failed to reach the top. Only Tun Mamat succeeded to the summit and
entered the garden of the Princess. But he could not see the Princess, and only
conveyed the sultan’s proposal through Dang Raya Rani who was the princess’s
chief lady in waiting. The beautiful princess sent her famous message to the
Sultan through Tun Mamat.

       The Message From Princess Of Mount Ledang
to Sultan Mahmud

       Tun
Mamat

       Convey
this message to the Sultan

       Bring
these as my dowry

       If he wishes
to marry me.

       Build
me a bridge of gold and another of silver

       Bring
me germs and mosquitoes seven trays of their hearts

       Vessels
full of tears and juice of young beetle nuts

       From
the king and his prince a bowl each of their blood.

       Honestly

       I knew
from the start

       That he
is willing to construct the bridge of misery

       Let the
people carry the trays of agony

       And
bear the burden of heavy vessels of tears

       Rack
their life with flame of his own desire

       Provided
he could escape the fire.

       Tun
Mamat,

       These
conditions only show my rejection

       As his
queen I refuse to be

       Seeing
my life a murky reflection

       I am
not Tun Fatimah

       With
the skill to forgive cruelty

       I am
not Tun Kudu

       Who
could be forced to agree

       It’s
enough with Hang Li Po

       Wrapped
up as a gift, a legacy

       Or Tun
Teja who tripped and fell

       The
lover she followed was only a shadow.

       Let
Mount Ledang stand tall, a reminder to all

       Of a
flower that survived and remained free

       Untouched
by the royal fancy

       Even a
woman can choose to disagree

       Even a
king has his turn

to admit being beaten.

This proposal is an episode in the Sejarah
Melayu (Malay Annals). The story may not have been historically true. The
princess may not  exist. But the writer
of the Sejarah Melayu  constructed
the story as a medium to criticize the Sultan for his unjust rule of the
country and his cruelty especially to women, treating them as if they have no
heart and soul. The Princess of Mount Ledang proposed these conditions of the
dowry as a way of refusing to marry him. As for the Sultan, this was the first
time anyone said no to him. The princess was the first woman to succeed in
showing the Sultan that he too must accept rejection. The important point in
“Message of the Princess of Mount Ledang to Sultan Mahmud” is the exertion of a
woman’s right to decide and take control of herself and her life. That the
princess was able to speak her mind showed that women have freedom of
expression. As I put in my poem:

Let Mount Ledang stand tall, a reminder to all

Of a flower that survived and remained free

Untouched by the royal fancy

Even a woman can choose to disagree

Even a king has his turn

to admit being beaten.

Besides the “Princess of Mount Ledang,” there are more
legendary figures in the Malay Annals, one of which is Princess Hang Li
Po.

The Voyage of Princess Hang Li Po (Original title: pelayaran Hang Li Po)

The beautiful Princess Hang Li Po

In the voyage to Melaka

Crying in agony

So young and so tender

To be torn from her mother

Like a shoot from its root

She’d rather die

Drowned by the ocean

Than to lose the loving touch of her parents

Is this her fate her destiny

To be delivered as a gift,

Wrapped as a commodity

Shipped to Melaka

As a bride and a donation

That would strengthen the nation

Her mother, Her Majesty, The Maharani

Had spoken in tears

My beloved Li Po, please be brave

This fact we have to face

You and me what we are born to be

As queens and princesses

We do not own ourselves

Marriage for us is not a personal decision

It is a state arrangement, a political mission.

Do not cry for your father

He is a man, and a king

He loves you as a daughter

But his kingdom is everything

He laughs and cries for the nation

The kingdom demands his attention

First the reign over his land

Family happiness comes second.

Yes Li Po

Look what history has written

Of empires and nations

Built and strengthened

At the sacrifice and tears of women

While many brought to the end

By misdeed and greed of men.

Princess Hang Li Po was the princess of China
betrothed to the Sultan of Melaka as the show of support and protection from
the much feared Empire of China to the newly founded nation of Melaka. The
Princess was taken away at a tender age when she still wanted to stay home and
be cuddled by her mother. I imagined Hang Li Po’s tears dropping into the ocean
for the people she loved. Her mother must have also cried in agony, but they both
were women facing patriarchal oppression. As a mother I was very much disturbed
and saddened by this mother-daughter separation. It would be heart-breaking for
any mother to have her daughter taken away and sent to a place so distant.
Given the condition of travel at that time, there was no guarantee of seeing
each other again. Hang Li Po was being treated as a commodity shipped to
Melaka. Marriage for queens and princesses is not a personal decision but a
political mission. Her father, as a man and a king, thought and talked less
about family happiness but more about nation building. Hang Li Po was not the
only one sacrificed for the sake of the Malacca Sultanate. There have been others, like Tun Teja who ran away for
the love of Hang Tuah only to find out that she was to be bestowed to the king.
Another known character in the Malay Annals was Tun Kudu, a queen who
was divorced by her husband and told to marry a statesman  in exchange for stability. Melaka was built
on the sorrow and tears of women, but it eventually fell due to the greed and
misdeed of men, as has been the case with so many other nations.

I have written poems about women in the legends, but
actually I was talking about the present situation. What happened to them is
happening to many women in our time, though in different ways. Even today,
there are marriages for reasons other than love. There are marriages of
convenience, marriages for family honour, business arrangements, social
commitments, and more often to save a woman and her family from the social
stigma. There is a high and often unaffordable price of living up to one’s
identity and carving one’s own destiny. This is what I said in a poem entitled
“Marriage”:

Marriage is a priority for many women and
societies, and the traditional upbringing instilled in women the anxiety of
remaining single. Even up to the present time some young girls sacrifice
advancement in career for a marriage prospect much to the loss of their
nations. In a poem “Salam Perempuan Dari Penjara,” (A Woman’s Greeting From
Prison), [S1]  I looked at a woman’s journey through life as a
procession which no one dares to divert from. It is a procession where everyone
walked to a fixed destiny:

She and her
sisters

in a procession
to their day

while within
this wall

they have not
lived at all

As I have mentioned earlier, there are women who marry
for the sake of freeing themselves from social stigma. As for choosing their
life partners, the elders told their girls not to be choosy and told their boys
to choose their bride properly. This depressing situation gave rise to a poem
“Satu Catatan Singkat” (A Short Conversation):

       A man is free to limit his choice

       A woman limits her choice to free
herself.  

To be born a woman, there is not much that you can do
but pray to God for his protection and guidance. As I wrote in “Nyanyian
Menidurkan Halini” (A Lullaby to Halini), in which I told a girl to be strong:

Don’t cry anymore

You must learn to value your tears

Don’t let it fall

on any wrong shoulders.

May you grow up Halini

With courage and confidence

Put your trust in God

You will really need him

Because you are born a woman.